And I used to think you were childish
by Smla
Summary: Sasori heard the explosions from the room where Deidara was fighting. From the pained cries that followed it seemed that his partner had managed to hurt his opponent rather badly. No surprise there. It was what happened next that took him by surprise.
1. Chapter 1

"Katsu"

Sasori heard the shouts and explosions from the other room where Deidara was fighting the other enemy. From the pained cries that followed it seemed that his partner had managed to hurt his opponent rather badly. No surprise there. It was what happened next that took him by surprise.

"Hengelock no jutsu!"

_That was a new one_, Sasori thought to himself, _I wonder how it works_. Suddenly the normal battlenoises where interrupted by a light, childlike voice screaming,

"Oww, Daaaanaaaa!"

_What the hell?_, Sasori quickly had four puppets grab his opponent at the same time to at least slow him down a bit and then ran into the next room. He froze on the doorstep, unable to take in the scene in front of him.

The enemy was laying on the floor, bleeding. Her lower body was completely destroyed by an explosion and she was breathing in short, ragged breaths indicating that she did not have much more time to live. Next to her stood a blond child dressed in a far too big Akatsuki-robe.

"Dana, she hit me. It hurts, un." the child said with tears running down his cheeks.

Sasori ran up to the dying woman and grabbed her collar pulling her head up from the floor and growled,

"What the hell did you do to Deidara? Change him back right now and I'll consider saving your life."

"I can't. It's a timed jutsu. He will turn back when the time runs out."

"How long will that take then"

The woman coughed, covering Sasori's face in bloodspots. He shook her and screamed,

"I said how long, damn it."

"Impossible to say, depends on how much resistance his body puts up. Probably about a week"

Sasori let go of the woman, letting her head fall back on the floor, when he heard a crashing noise from the room he had been fighting in earlier. He turned around to find her partner standing in the door with part of a puppet's arm still hanging on to his left leg.

The man looked from Sasori to the woman and then back again. He tightened his grip on the two swords in his hands.

"You'll pay for this" he said and ran towards Deidara with the swords raised.

Without even bothering to take his robe off Sasori let the poisonous cable in his stomach shoot out and pierce the man's chest. He then lifted him up in the air just to let him slam back down face first. The man didn't move any more but his furious eyes stared at the puppetmaster for a short while before the light went out in them.

Sasori thought about letting the cable run once through his head as well just to be on the safe side but seeing the terrified look in the little boy's blue eyes made him decide against it. Even if the man somehow managed to survive having his torso pierced the poison would take him out in a matter of minutes.

He let the weapon coil back in his body and turned around to face the crying child. Oh, man he had no idea what to do about this.

"You OK Deidara?" he asked.

"You killed him" the boy managed between sobs.

"He was going to hurt or maybe kill you. I had to do something."

"Now they're dead, un."

"Yes"

"You…You killed them. You're a killer, un"

_Well, technically you where the one who killed the woman. _Sasori though but instead he said,

"Yes, they were our enemies, they were trying to kill us as well"

"So we won?"

"Yea"

"Yay, we're the winners" Deidara shouted and threw his arms up in the air.

_At least his personality seem to be somewhat intact._

"OK, we have to get going before someone else gets here to back them up. Start looking for a box, about this big, with a big blue rock embedded in the lid."

"Why, un?"

Sasori rubbed his finger across his eyes to try to calm himself and said,

"Because the leader wants it. He sent us here to take it."

"OK"

After a few minutes of searching Sasori heard Deidara call from the other end of the house.

"Dana, there's a loose brick here but I can't reach it"

When he came into the room he found the child standing in the fireplace covered in soot and reaching up the chimney. He turned around and looked at Sasori.

"Dana if you lift me up I can look if the box is there" he said with a smile.

"I can just look myself"

"NO, I wanna look. I found it, un"

Deidara crossed his arms across his chest and squinted his eyes in an attempt to look angry and dangerous. The sight was so humours that Sasori couldn't help but sigh and lift the boy up to check behind the brick.

"Yay. There is a box here. I found it, I found it. I'm the best, right dana?"

"Yea, yea, whatever. Take it out so we can see if it's the right one."

The bundle was taken out of the hole and placed on the floor. Carefully Sasori removed the cloth that had been wrapped around it to reveal a dark wooden box with a rock like half a blue chickens egg on the lid.

"This is it, let's go." He said and wrapped it back up to protect it.

"I wanna see what's inside."

"No. The leader said we should just get it and and call him when we had it, not look inside."

"But I wanna, un!"

"I said no! And don't start crying, it wont help you. Now hurry before we run into more trouble"

Pulling a sobbing Deidara behind him Sasori half walked, half ran away from the house towards a nearby forest where he'd probably be able to find a good place to contact the leader. He knew there was some caves about five kilometres to the east so he headed towards them. _If only the brat would stop crying already._


	2. Chapter 2

They had walked nearly one third of the way when there was a tug on Sasori's sleeve. He looked down and was met by the slightly flustered face of the child trying to keep up with him even though he had to hold his clothes up just to be able to walk.

"Can we take a brake dana. I have to pee."

"Can't it wait?"

"No" Deidara said biting his lip and shaking his head.

"Fine, I'll wait here"

"You have to help me."

"No way"

"But I can't hold on to all these clothes at the same time, un."

"Then take them of. I'm not helping you go the bathroom."

"OK"

The boy quickly stripped of all his clothing. He then ran of behind a bush leaving Sasori to sit on a stump and look at a pair of ridiculous boxers covered in cartoon bombs and explosions on top of the pile. _I knew you went back bought them even though we agreed to save our money for the rest of the mission_. He sighed and began picking through the pile.

Deidara could hear the sound of running water and just a little bit away he found a small brook running down the hillside. He laughed and carefully put his feet in the water. It tickled a bit. He sat down and squeaked a little when the cold water touched his tummy.

There was insects flying around him and he tried to splash them with water. He giggled when he hit one and it fell down on the moss growing on the ground next to him. Picking up some mud from the bottom of the brook and chewing on it for a little while with his hand he managed to make a small sculpture that looked vaguely like a beetle. He put it down on the ground and watched it crawl over to the wet insect.

"Katsu" he said and laughed when creature was reduced to two twitching legs and part of a wing.

"That was fun. I wanna do it again, un."

He picked up some more mud and formed it into a fish. He played with the fish for a while letting it swim around him and take some small leaps out of the water before swimming away a little bit further.

"Katsu"

The explosion sent ripples of waves across the water and he screamed when they washed against the part of his stomach that had until then been above the surface. He made more fishes and had them swim up to a stick floating by and managed to blow it to pieces.

He had just began creating a group of beetles to try and blow up a small tree growing a few meters away when he heard someone calling his name.

"Deidara what are you doing. You just said you were going to take a piss and then come back. You know that I don't like waiting or making people wait."

Sasori came down the hill with long strides carrying Deidara's clothes in his arms.

"I'm sorry dana. I forgot,un"

"How can you forget something in the ten seconds it takes you to pee?"

"Don't yell at me!"

"I'm not yelling. I'm talking in a loud voice."

"That's the same, un."

"No it isn't. Now get out of there, we have to go."

Sasori looked at Deidara's soot covered robe and sighed. That would only leave him even dirtier than he already was. He took of his own robe and wrapped the boy in it to dry him of.

"I killed it" Deidara said.

"What?"

"One of them. I blew it up,un." he continued and pointed towards the insects.

"That's good" Sasori said absent-mindedly rubbing the long blond hair.

"And then I blew up a stick and I was going to blow up that tree. Can I please blow up that tree before we go?"

"OK, but first you have to get dressed. I have taken off the bottom part of your pants so if we fold them up a little you should be able to use them."

He put the pants on the boy and secured them around the waist with a piece of string. When he put the shirt on it hung down below the knees. _That wont do. With my luck he'll probably get stuck somewhere on it,_ he thought. So he undid the string again and tucked the shirt in the pants. Then he took all the clay out of one of the claybags and put it in the other one. Luckily there wasn't much left. He jammed the rest of the clothing in to the now empty bag and gave it to Deidara to carry. The only things that didn't fit was the robe and the shoes so he wrapped them up and tied them on his own back.

"Are you ready?" he asked. Deidara nodded.

"Then let's go. The leader is waiting for us to contact him."

They turned around and walked back up the hill.

"Katsu"

Sasori turned around at the sound of the explosion and saw a smoking crater about 1.5 meter across on the other side of the brook. _Better keep an eye on that,_ he thought to himself.


	3. Chapter 3

"Leader. We found the box for you."

"Very good, I'll have Zetsu bring it here. Did you have any problems with the guards?"

"Well, we eliminated them but there were some complications."

"What kind of complications?"

"Deidara was hit by one of the enemy's jutsu and now he's stuck like this" Sasori said pulling out the boy that had been hiding behind him.

"What kind of jutsu is that?"

"I think she called it hengelock no jutsu."

"Couldn't you have forced her to remove it?"

"I tried, but apparently it can't be removed before the time runs out. It will take around a week before he's back to normal."

"Interesting. That jutsu might have some nice possibilities" Konan joined in.

"Well, do something. I can't have a child tugging along when I'm hunting jinjuriki now, can I?"

"What do you want us to do? It's not like we have babysitters on stand by. Or extra partners for that matter. Try paying some old lady or something to take care of him for a couple of days"

"I don't want to be with some old lady. I wanna be with dana. Not someone else. I'll blow them up, un" Deidara said stamping his foot repeatedly.

"If he starts killing people it will create a lot of unwanted attention." Konan said sending Sasori meaningful looks.

"No" he said.

"Oh, come on." she said.

"I said no"

"Sasori!" The leaders voice sounded like he was holding back his irritation.

"Fine then. But we're taking a vacation until he's better. OK?"

"Granted" the leader said nodding his head once. "Give the box to Zetsu and he'll bring it to me. Good bye"

The image of Sasori flickered and then disappeared. The leader turned to walk back outside and watch the rain.

"Do you think he can handle it?" Konan asked.

"He doesn't have a choice. Deidara is his partner and thereby his responsibility."

"I suppose so, and I guess if there is anyone that can keep a wild child like him in line it would be Sasori."

The leader didn't answer.


	4. Chapter 4

Ch 4

This was not what he had planned. He had thought he would leave Deidara in the leader's hands and then be rid of the problem. Instead he was now going on vacation with the brat. Well, he couldn't go against the leader. He'd just have to make the best of it.

"If we keep walking this way for a while we'll get to a small town. We can stay there for the night"

"OK dana"

"And we might have to get you some new clothes."

"OK dana"

"And we better not let anyone know we are members of the Akatsuki if we want to have some peace and quiet."

"OK dana"

"So we better hide the robes."

"OK dana"

"But I will have to get a sweater or something first to hide the puppetbody."

"OK dana"

"I guess I could just turn the robe inside out for now until we get to a shop."

"OK dana"

"And don't you dare make that explode" Sasori said and picked a small clay-spider off his shoulder.

"How did you know that was there? You can't feel,un."

"I'm a puppet, I'm not blind. Plus I know you."

"I don't believe you. I think you're cheating, un."

"Yea, whatever. Did you listen to what I was talking about?"

"Yes"

"Then tell me. What did I say?"

"Ehm… You said, ehm, that we are going to a shop to get clothes"

"Good. And what else? What did I say we should not do?"

"Ehm… explode"

"I said we should not tell people that we are from Akatsuki. We should keep it a secret. Can you do that."

"Yes dana"

"Good, now hurry up if we are going to make it before everything closes."


	5. Chapter 5

They did not make it before closing time. They had had to stop five times so Deidara could rest or have a drink or go to the bathroom again. Travelling with a child was proving to be even more trouble than Sasori had thought. When he finally walked in to town with a sleeping boy in his arms the sun had already been down for over an hour. He walked down the main street until he met a woman going in the opposite direction.

"Excuse me, but do you know of anywhere we could rent a room for the night?" he asked.

"Yes, you asked the right girl. I work at a little hotel just short walk from here. I was just on my way to the night shift in the reception. If you come with me I could have you checked in in no time."

"Thank you. That's very kind of you" Sasori said and followed the girl.

"I'm Izanami by the way."

"Sa… Satoru"

"Ok nice to meet you Satoru, and what is her name?" she said nodding towards Deidara. Sasori smiled.

"His name is Deidei."

"Oh. I'm sorry"

"Don't worry about it. You're not the first, and probably not the last either."

"It's the hair."

"I know. He wont let me cut it and to be honest I don't think I want to. I can stand having to correct people if it means that he's happy."

"It does look terribly cute on him."

"Thank you"

They walked the last part of the way in silence.

When they had been checked in and wished Izanami a good night Sasori locked the door and helped Deidara take off his clothes and put on the boxers as the closest thing to a pyjamas. He then brushed his teeth. He wondered for a while if he was supposed to brush the ones in his hands as well. Just to be on the safe side he did.

He carried the little boy to the bed and put him under the covers.

"Will you tell me a story, dana?"

"Sure. What do you want to hear about?"

"A dragon"

"OK"

Sasori lay down next to Deidara and began slowly stroking his hair while telling a story about the blue dragon from the wind country. It didn't take long before they were both asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

The following morning Sasori was woken by someone jumping up and down on the bed next to him.

"Look dana, look. There is a lake outside the window. Can we go swimming? Please!"

"We have to go buy new clothes first remember. But if you behave we might go to the lake when we're done."

"Yay, we're going to the lake"

The boy jumped off the bed and ran over to the window again. On his way there however the too big boxers he was wearing slid off him and he tripped on them and fell.

"Owww, daaanaaa" he cried clutching his knee.

Sasori got out of the bed and went over to have a look at it. The skin was chafed but it wasn't bleeding.

"It's OK." he said.

"No it's not OK. It hurts. You have to blow on it and put a band-aid on to take away the pain, un."

Sasori did as he was told and blew on the tiny wound. He didn't have any band-aids though so he put on a piece of PVC-tape from his toolbox. Deidara didn't seem to notice the difference.

When they got out from the hotel Sasori realised that he had no idea where to go. He went back in to ask the receptionist, leaving Deidara outside looking at some butterflies. When he returned with a newly purchased map in one hand he found the boy standing in the flowerbed with a clump of earth in his hands.

"No Deidei. Let go of that and get back out here." he said.

"But dana."

"No buts, come here."

Deidara threw the earth back on the ground hard and trudged out of the flowerbed. Sasori looked at him and sighed.

"What is it with you and dirt? Look at you. You look like you just crawled out from under a rock or something."

"I just want it to go boom"

"Deidara, remember what I said yesterday, about keeping a low profile. That goes for blowing things up as well. We don't want people getting suspicious."

"Ok dana"

"Oh, and just so you know, I told that woman we met that our names are Satoru and Deidei. Do you think you can remember that?"

"So she thinks your name is Satoru?"

"Yes. It's like a game. We pretend that those are our names and that we never had anything to do with Akatsuki. And we can't tell anyone. OK?"

"OK dana"

After three of the most tiring hours Sasori had experienced in a long time they stood outside a toy store where he had bought Deidara a yo-yo as a reward for sitting quiet on a chair while he picked out and tried on some clothes for himself.

Up until then the child had kept running around the store picking out things he wanted seemingly at random and throwing them in the puppetmasters arms before running off to find more.

Eventually he had captured him and clarified that since this was just for a week he would not buy more than five shirts, two pairs of pants, two five-packs of underwear, one six-pack of socks, one pair of shoes and maybe one pair of swimming trunks. After that he had placed himself on a chair while Deidara ran in and out of the fitting-room trying on different things and asking his opinion about them.

"Does this count as a shirt or a pair of pants?" he asked when he came out wearing a blue dress with a fireworks print on it.

"It counts as neither. It's girls clothes."

"But I want it. It has explosions on it, un."

"I'm still not buying you a dress. I'll ask someone if they have the print on a t-shirt or something. Give it to me"

Sasori returned with a red t-shirt that had almost the same print. When he gave it to Deidara he noticed that the boy was now wearing a pair of grey calf-length pants with a glittery dragon print on the back. He thought it better not to argue with it.

"What do you think of this?"

"I like it. I think I have decided what I want now, un"

In the end they left the store with most of the clothes coming from the boys department. The only things that didn't was the red t-shirt, the grey pants and a pair of black Hello Kitty flip-flops that Sasori had broken down and bought even thought they were not part of the original deal. At the last minute he also bought a pair of fingerless gloves to cover up the boys palms.

"So what do you want for lunch" he asked.

"Dangos"

"OK let's see if we can find a dangoplace around here"

They did and spent their lunch sitting under a tree surrounded by their different bags.

"And now we're going to the lake, right dana?"

"Not right away. We have to stop by the hotel-room and leave the clothes there."

"But then we are going to the lake?"

"Sure"

"And then I will show you that with my new swimming trunks I can swim faster than Kisame."

"I highly doubt that but I promise to look"

"Yay, dana" the boy said and gave Sasori a quick hug. He couldn't help but laugh at it.

An: Please rewiew. It makes me so happy 


	7. Chapter 7

As soon as they got to the lake Deidara threw off his clothes and ran into the water.

"Dana, dana look now. I'm gonna swim faster that anyone. Look dana"

"I'm looking. Very good. Almost as fast as Sharkface, very good Deidei" Sasori said while spreading a blanket on the ground and sitting down to read a book.

"You weren't looking, you were reading! You have to look at me to know how fast I am. Look now. I'm gonna swim from here to that pole and you time me, un"

"OK. Ready, set, go."

While he followed the boy's splashing with his eyes Sasori sensed that someone was approaching him. He looked around and saw a woman looking at him. He smiled.

"Hello"

"Oh, hello. You are new here aren't you?" she asked him.

"Yes, we're here on vacation actually."

"That's nice. How old is your kid?"

Sasori looked at him, trying to estimate a believable answer.

"Four"

"That's the same as my little Hana**."**

"Dana, how fast was that?" Deidara yelled from the water.

"Twenty seconds. You were saying" he said turning back to the woman.

"I have a kid too. She's…"

"Look now dana I'm gonna beat my last time!"

"Deidei, I'm trying to have a conversation."

"But you can look at the same time."

"OK. Sorry about that. Now, you have a kid."

"Yes. She is over there trying to inflate a beach-ball"

"I see her"

"Perhaps we could get them to play with each other so we can get some peace an quiet? I see you have a book to read as well"

"Yea that's a good idea. I'll go ask him."

Sasori walked down to the water and called Deidara. He gave a quick lecture on how to play like a nice kid and then pointed him towards the girl.

"And remember we are here in secret" he whispered after the boy before letting go of his hand.

The woman, who introduced herself as Kichi, spread out her blanket next to Sasori's and laid down with her nose in her own book. He found that this way of socialising suited him perfectly. Sitting quietly and read and occasionally looking over to make sure the children were still within seeing distance. He had just got to a particularly good part of the book when he was ripped back to reality by Kichi's voice.

"Look he's making mud-sculptures, how cute."

Sasori looked around and saw Deidara finish his third tiny bird made out of damp earth.

"No! No it's not" he said and stood up. "Deidei what are those?"

The boy looked up with a big smile gracing his dirty face.

"Art." he said.

"Deidei, if you're planing what I think you're planing we are going to leave this town faster than you can say un"

"But dana"

"No. In that case we are going back and spending the rest of our vacation in the caves. So it's your choice, stay here and play nicely with other kids or sit in a cave without anybody to play with."

"Stay here"

"Good"

"But can I make sculptures if I don't blow them, un?"

"Yes I guess you can but I'd rather you did something else. Can't you go buy Hana an ice-cream for example?"

"Yay ice-cream"

"If that's OK with you of course." Sasori said to Kichi.

"Yes that's fine" she said and they watched the two kids run over to the little café nearby.

"Don't you think you where a little hard on him?" she continued when the door closed behind them.

"It might seem so but no. Deidei has a rather destructive view on art. It's better if he does something else."

"But he's just a kid"

"Believe me, it's for everyone's safety."


	8. Chapter 8

They spent the entire afternoon by the lake and Sasori was pleased that he did not have to step in again to avert disaster. Deidara actually managed to play nice and the worst thing he did was announcing that he was peeing in the water.

Hana turned out to be real little troublemaker herself. She snuck up on her mother when she was reading and put wet seaweed on her back and she managed to steal Deidara's yo-yo and climb up a tree with it. Being a ninja the boy of course had no problem following her but in the end they both had to be lifted down because they said it was to high to jump. Sasori did not believe this for a minute but he was glad that the boy was at least acting somewhat like a normal four year old.

When they got back to the hotel they found Izanami in the restaurant.

"Good evening. Have you had a nice day?" she asked.

"Yes. We got new clothes and we went swimming and dana bought me a yo-yo, I can almost make it come back up every time. Look." Deidara said and pulled the toy out of his pocket.

"Very nice" the woman said and looked patiently for nearly two minutes at the red orb going up and down the string.

"Are you hungry Deidei? Should we get some dinner before I put you to bed? If you are still serving food of course" Sasori said looking at the pair in front of him.

"Yes we do. What would you like?"

"Bakudan!"

"OK Deidei I will get you some. And what about you Satoru?"

Sasori had not been prepared for that. Being a puppet he did not need food but refusing it might seem strange. _I suppose if I get something small I could cram it into my mouth and then clean it out when we get back to the room. But that would make it hard to talk and I might need to say something before I get to the bathroom._Surprisingly it was Deidara that provided the solution.

"Dana can't eat food. His body can't take care of it. He only eat special food we have in our room"

"Oh. OK, can I get you something to drink then?"

"Just water thank you"

They were placed at a small table near a window. Outside was a garden filled with flowers and with little paths going in different directions. When they asked Izanami about it she told them that it belonged to the hotel and that they were welcome spend as much time in it as they wanted.

"But don't touch the flowers. Our gardener is not the forgiving kind."

"OK we won't" Sasori smiled.

When he had finished his food Deidara yawned and rubbed his eyes.

"I want to go out in the garden" he said.

"Let's brush your teeth first and then we can take a quick walk around it before you have to go to sleep."

"OK dana. Good night Izanami"

"Good night" the woman said when she came over to take away the plates.

Sasori paid for the food and then took the sleepy boy by the hand and lead him to the room. It was just barely that the boy could keep his eyes open through brushing his teeth and putting on his pyjamas. But when Sasori suggested that they would go see the garden tomorrow instead he nearly began crying and screamed that he had promised that they would go when he had gotten ready for bed and that dana lied. So in the end he picked up the drowsy kid and carried him outside.

He followed one of the shorter pathways and spent most of time talking softly about the plants they went past. When they got back inside the boy had already fallen into a deep sleep. Sasori put him down in the bed and went to sit in the window and read his book for a while before going to sleep himself. He thought back on his first full day of taking care of a child and came to the conclusion that it could have been a lot worse.


	9. Chapter 9

The following day began with rain. While Deidara ate his breakfast, and watched the water pour down the window and jump off the windowsill, Sasori went to the reception to find out if there was any good indoor activities they could recommend. He came back with a handwritten list of museums and movies and a bowling ally.

"Look dana. It's him." Deidara said and pointed at something outside the window.

"Who?"

"The gardener. He is out there."

"Really."

"Yes, he is putting umbrellas over the flowers. Why is he doing that, un?"

"I don't know. Have you eaten your egg yet?"

"No, it wasn't ready yet when I went to get it."

"When was that then?"

"Hmm, before the sandwich."

"Then it might be ready now. I'll go ask them."

When Sasori got back to the table with the egg he couldn't see Deidara anywhere. _Maybe he went to the bathroom_, he thought. He sat down at the table to wait. Outside the gardener was slowly making his way around the garden. Suddenly Sasori noted a second person cautiously approaching the man._ Ahh. Found you._

"Hello" Deidara said when he had finally eased his way close enough to the man.

The gardener looked around a bit confused until his eyes fell on the wet boy standing in the middle of the path.

"Well, hello there. Who might you be?"

"I might be Deidei who lives here but I won't tell you if I am, un" the boy smiled and shook his head.

"And how can I find out if you are then?"

"You ask dana."

"OK"

"Why are you putting umbrellas on the flowers?"

"I have to help them because they can't do it themselves."

"But flowers shouldn't be afraid of getting wet"

"Oh they're not. They like being wet but you see how hard it's falling now, right? Some of the flowers have fragile heads and they can hurt themselves if it falls on them to hard."

"So it's like they get a headache, un?"

"Yes."

"Can I help you?"

"Yes. If you want to you can go around and see who needs an umbrella"

"How do I know that?"

"Well look at Sammy here. You can see that his petals look sad and pained so he needs an umbrella."

"Is the flower's name Sammy?"

"Yes"

"What are the other's names?"

"I think you better ask them for yourself"

"Can I talk to the flowers?"

"That depends, are you a good listener?"

"Yes"

"Then I think you can. But you have to listen closely and use your heart. And if they don't say anything at first it might be because they're shy."

Deidara nodded and turned to the part of the garden that had not been umbrellized yet. He decided that it was probably best to start with someone big so the small ones could see that he wasn't dangerous. He went up to a white flower he thought looked confident.

"Hello, I'm Deidei. I'm helping Mr. Gardener. What is your name" he put his ear near the flower and listened.

"That cant be your name. That's not a name, it's a fruit."

"You got a point. So Tangerine, do you need an umbrella?"

"OK. I'll tell him"

"Tangerine says that she don't need an umbrella herself but that the small ones growing around her feet does."

"OK come and get one for them then" the gardener said with a big smile and handed Deidara a green umbrella.

They continued like this all trough the garden. Deidara talked to all the flowers and occasionally went back to tell Tangerine what some of the flowers in the other flowerbeds where talking about. The gardener smiled when he saw the enthusiasm with which the boy devoted himself to the game.

Sasori watched them from the dry haven of the back door. He saw how his partner ran around the garden but he couldn't quite figure out exactly what it was he was doing. He sighed when he realised that the new clothes that were clean when he put them on the boy not even an hour ago was now covered in mudstains and that was nothing compared to the shoes. _What is it with that guy and dirt._

Eventually Deidara had finished what ever it was he was doing and came running over to Sasori. He would probably have jumped in his arms if he had not put up a hand to stop him.

"Dana. I helped"

"That's good. Are you going to run around more in the mud or can we go put on some clean clothes?"

"We're finished"

"Good. Then go thank the nice man for letting you play with him and then we can get going."

"OK. Thank you mr Gardener."

"Nice to meet you maybe Deidei and thank you for the help. Have a nice day now"

"OK. You too"

They changed all the dirty clothes and then they decided to go bowling. The people in the reception was nice enough to lend them umbrellas so they actually got there relatively dry. It turned out that Deidara was a natural at bowling and even though he had to use both hands just to lift the ball he managed to hit quite a few strikes.

"Do you think we can go bowling with some of the guys when we get back? I want to kick Itachi's ass at it."

"I don't know. But we can ask them"

"Good"

They ate their lunch at a restaurant just across the street. There was not that many other people there but among the few that were was a family with two little twin boys. They could not sit still for the life of them. They screamed and threw things at each other and ran around the table. Their poor mother looked like she was about to have a nervous breakdown and the father did not help one bit, he just laughed at them. After trying to ignore the situation for nearly fifteen minutes Sasori decided that he had to at least try to help the young woman. If not for anything else then for the fact that if the screaming did not stop soon he would probably kill someone.

"Deidei can you see if you can find a red box with a circle on it in my bag?"

"OK. This one?" the boy asked from the floor.

"Yes. Give it to me please."

Deidara put the box on the table and then sat down on his chair to watch. Sasori opened the box and took out a puppet, about twenty centimetres long. He had began building it for assassination purposes but it was an easy thing to remove the poisonous blades from its hands and feet. He gave the puppet to Deidara.

"Go over to them and tell them that if they sit quietly next to you on the floor while their mother finishes her meal your puppet is going to dance for them."

Deidara nodded and went over to the noisy table. At first the boys looked confused and then one of them said.

"It's just a wooden toy it can't move"

"Yes it can. Look it got these joint on it knees and elbows and such"

"He mean it can't move on it's own it's just you playing with it."

"No it's not. I'll prove it."

Deidara put the puppet down on the floor where it lay lifeless for a few seconds. The twins smiled triumphantly and nodded towards each other. Then the puppet stretched a bit like if it was just waking from a sleep and sat up and looked around. The twins almost knocked each other over trying to get down on the floor to watch it closer. The puppet stood up and went over to Deidara and gestured that he should bend down. It pretended to whisper something in his ear while pointing towards the two other boys.

"I don't know their names actually. I just met them at this restaurant where me and dana was having lunch."

The puppet nodded and went over to take a closer look at the two boys. They sat very still and didn't dare to move one muscle when the small body began climbing up on one of them to get a better look. It pointed back and forth between them and looked over at Deidara.

"Yes they're twins" he said.

The puppet bowed to them and jumped back down to the floor where it moved to stand in front of the three boys. It bowed again and lifted it's arms up over its head. Standing on it's tippy toes it then began to do something that looked like a solo version of the four little swans from Swan Lake. The boys stared in amazement, Deidara did as well because even though he theoretically understood that dana could do this sort of things the puppet ballet performances where somewhat limited out on missions.

The twins' mother did not trust her sons to remain quietly interested for long so she focused on her food but occasionally Sasori could see her glance over at the puppet in what looked like utter disbelief. He thought it was extremely comical when she nudged her husband too look at it and he just patted her hand and told her that it was a toy, nothing to get so excited over. He guessed that neither of them had ever been to Suna.

When they had finished their meal the parents told their sons to say good bye to Deidara and thank him for letting them play with him. On the way out the mother stopped at Sasori's table and leaned forward to quietly say:

"I saw when you sent your kid over with the doll. Thank you."

"No problem"

That night's dinner was pretty much the same as the night before. Deidara ate bakudan and Sasori had to explain that he could not eat normal food due to a highly dysfunctional digestivesystem. He hoped that no one would ask him about what exactly was wrong with it. Then he would have no idea what to say.

When it was time for bed Deidara demanded that Sasori should act out the bedtime story with puppets. He tried to explain to him that he didn't have enough small puppets to do that and that using big ones would be both too crowded and too suspicious if someone saw it through the window or something. After listening to Deidara's sobbing and complaining for a while he did however give up. He ended up acting out Little Red Ridinghood using the little puppet as the grandmother, a red handkerchief doll as the girl, one of his socks as the wolf and he himself playing both the mother and the hunter. _Please don't let him remeber this when the jutsu wears of_.

_**AN****: Please review. It would make my day :)**_


	10. Chapter 10

Sasori was woken by a scream coming from the bathroom. He jumped out of the bed and ran to the door. There he stopped to look at something he had not expected to ever get to see. Deidara was standing with his hand down his pants, crying his eyes out.

"What happened Deidara?"

"I was just going to pee and I bit me."

Sasori put a hand over his moth to try to hold back a laughter.

"You bit yourself?"

"Stop laughing it's not funny. It hurts like hell"

"I'm sorry. But why do you still have your hand in your pants?"

Deidara mumbled something trough the tears. Sasori couldn't quite hear it but it sounded something like, it wont let go. Oh my god he would have some great blackmail material after this.

Putting his pinkie between the teeth Sasori managed to release the mouth's grip on the boy. He was a little bit disappointed when he realised that the part that was stuck was a part of the skin just above the things he had been hoping for. _I guess you can't have it all_, he thought. But he was still pretty sure Deidara would not want people to know about it.

Looking closer at the boy's hands and face Sasori decided that it was time for a bath. He filled up the tub and told Deidara to get inside it. He had been afraid that this would lead to a lot of arguing and fighting but he was pleased to see that the boy actually got in rather happily.

"Will you wash my hair dana?"

"Can't you do that yourself?"

"No I can't. I want you to do it."

"OK, but I'm only doing the hair. You have too wash the rest of your body yourself"

"But I can't reach my back."

"OK I'll do the parts you can't reach but that's all."

When the bath had been taken care of and Deidara's hair had been dried and brushed they went down to breakfast. On the way there they met an old woman.

"Oh what a cute little girl." she exclaimed and put her hands together in front of her mouth.

The little boy looked around to see who she was talking about. Sasori chuckled to himself. The clothes that Deidara had decided to wear that day was the grey dragon pants and the red t-shirt and since it was a warm day he wore the Hello Kitty sandals on his feet. In combination with the long smooth hair he looked very cute indeed.

When Deidara realised that the woman must have been talking about him he stared at her with dark eyes.

"Oh, what a handsome old man." he screamed and stormed off down the corridor.

"Oh dear, maybe you should get your daughter some glasses or something" the woman continued seemingly oblivious to what was going on.

"No, actually HIS eyesight is very good" Sasori said and then left the woman to go after his partner.

"Why do people keep mistaking me for a girl, un?" Diedara asked when he caught up to him.

"It's because you dress in girls clothing"

"I dress in what ever I feel like, what's wrong with that, un?"

"Nothing. But if you want go around dressed like a girl you have to accept that people will make mistakes"

"But I aint got no boobs"

"No four year old has"

"Ok, but when I grow up people will understand, right dana"

"Hopefully they will one day."

After breakfast they decided to go to the lake again. Sasori brought a new book because he had nearly finished the one he had been reading. Deidara brought a plastic plate he had gotten from one of the waiters. He was planning on using it as a Frisbee.

"Will you come swimming too dana?"

"No, I don't swim."

"Are you afraid of drowning?"

"Quite the opposite actually, I think I might float on top of the water. I am mostly made of wood remember"

"That sounds fun dana, can't you please come swim with me?"

"No. We have to keep a low profile if we don't want anyone to know who we really are, and a living puppet floating around might be the kind of thing people notice." Sasori said with a smile.

"But there isn't anyone who knows that the real you is a puppet."

"It's still might be suspicious"

"Oh please, please, please dana"

"I'm sorry Deidei, I can't. If you're lucky there might be some other kids you can play with."

Deidara didn't answer him. He just looked down in the ground and continued walking. Sasori felt a little sorry for him but he could not give up and give the boy what he wanted. Showing his body was out of the question since that would be the same as screaming from the rooftops that he was not what he claimed to be.

AN: Rewiews make me so happy :)


	11. Chapter 11

Ch 11

When they reached the lake Sasori was met by a very welcome sight.

"Look Deidei, I think I see something you'll be happy about"

"What,un?"

"Hana is over there" Sasori said and pointed towards the water.

As soon as Deidara had located the girl he dropped everything he had in his hands and ran over to her leaving Sasori to take care of everything himself. He spread the blanket out at the same place as the last time.

"Are you stalking me?" he heard a voice behind him.

He turned around to face a smiling Kichi.

"I promise if I was stalking you you wouldn't know about it"

"Really? Feeling confident today?"

"No, just thought I'd let you know. By the way wasn't it you who came after me to begin with. Maybe you're the stalker"

"No I come here everyday if the weather allows it"

"I see. Don't you ever work?"

"I work evenings, that's why I try to spend a lot of time with Hana during the day before I leave her with my mother over night."

"I see"

"What do you work with?"

For a brief moment Sasori thought about how Kichi would react if he told her the truth, Oh me. I work for a criminal organisation with focus on world domination. I hunt down and capture people called Jinjurikies among other things. And I manufacture and fight with puppets made out of real people. He decided to go with something only half true.

"I'm a puppet maker"

"Really. What kind of puppets?"

"Most kinds actually. I make those poseable puppets, you know, for artist and I make toys and marionettes and such"

"How interesting, how long have you been doing that?"

"Since I was little. My grandmother taught me"

"How nice"

Suddenly Sasori was hit in the back of the head by the plate Deidara had brought.

"Toss it back dana"

"So this is your flying saucer?"

"It's not a saucer dana. It's obviously a dinner plate."

"If you say so Mr Fancy"

"Come on dana play with us" Deidara said followed by batting eyelashes and his head tilted to one side.

"Yea come on Satoru. I'm sure we girls can hold on to the plate longer than you guys can" Kichi said with a big smile.

The girls put up a good fight but in the end they didn't have a chance. After all Sasori and Deidara had spent a lot of time working together. Even thought the amount shouting, cursing and insulting that went on made the girls a little bit confused they knew where they had each other.

After the game the kids ran down to the water to swim leaving the grown ups to finally relax a little.

"You don't swim?"

"Not if I can help it. I'd rather stay here and read but you can go ahead if you want to. I'll keep an eye on your stuff"

"Maybe later"

It only took Kichi three and a half minute to fall asleep with her face in her book. Sasori laughed a little and shook his head. He looked down to waterfront where Deidara was chasing the girl with something in his hand. Since the girl was laughing he decided that he didn't need to do anything about it and went back to reading his book.

Sasori found himself getting more and more irritated at the main character in the book. It was like the author had taken everything he found annoying about the people he worked with and mashed them into one terrible person. And to top it all up the front page showed a boy with long blond hair hitting on a short redhead. Sure the girl's hair was long, curly and styled in two high ponytails but it was still too close. When he heard Deidara call him all that irritation poured out in one word.

"What?" he growled without looking up.

"Hana is going to be my girlfriend."

"Don't do it Hana. He'll just play with you for a while and then dump you when someone else comes along. He always does. Not that he ever has a problem finding one."

"But mommy always says that you should be able to play three as well" she said.

Sasori looked at the pair remembering that he was not dealing with the usual hopeful teenage girl but a four year old. Maybe this time it could end well. No, who was he kidding? This was still going to end in someone screaming bloody murder at Deidara. But on the upside it would not end in him having to preform memory-concealing on the girl to make her forget what the father of her unwanted child looked like.

"Well of course she is right about that. But you know we will have to leave in a couple of days."

"No, why can't we stay here dana? I like it here. And you like it here to."

"We have to get back to work Deidei."

"No I don't wanna. I wanna stay here and marry Hana and have lots of cute little kids. Screw the leader I wanna stay here and be happy, un."

Sasori had to press his knuckles to his forehead to keep himself from snapping and yelling at the boy. You already have at least three little kids you have never even met. No, that would be unfair. After all he was the one who had decided not to tell Deidara about it.

"Can I talk with you for a minute" Sasori said putting his hand on the boy's shoulder and leading him out of earshot from the girls.

"Deidara. Do you remember why we are here?"

"To get some peace and quiet"

"Do you remember why we had to go on this vacation? Do you remember what happened when we where fighting those two who were guarding the box?"

"I don't know. I was hit by some jutsu or something" Deidara said looking a little uncomfortable.

" Yes. You where hit by a jutsu that shrunk you into a child. The woman said that it would take about a week for you to turn back to normal and when you do we have to leave. I know right now it feels like you and Hana are meant for each other but in reality you are almost fourteen years older than her. Even if we would stay here things could not stay like this. You understand?"

"Yes dana" Deidara said while tears began to slowly role down his cheeks.

Sasori put his hands on the boy's shoulders and leaned down to look into his eyes. He didn't really know what to do but he tried wiping away the tears and stroking the boy's hair. It seemed to work because Deidara stopped crying even if he still looked sad.

"Know what? Even if we can't stay here you could ask for her address so you can write to each other. That way you can be friends even when you grow back up"

"OK. I'll ask her."

As he watched the boy run off to his friend Sasori realised that he had managed to forget a rather important thing. They didn't have an address, where was Hana going to send her letters? He had to think of a solution fast before Deidara blew their cover by saying too much. He hurried after the child.

"Satoru, Deidei told us he doesn't know your address could you write it down for us, please?" Kichi said when she saw him.

"Actually we are in the process of moving so if you give us your address we will send you ours as soon as we know where we'll end up"

"Ehm, OK. Will do." she said with a smile. Sasori smiled too, he had at least bought them some more time.

"By the way what are you doing tomorrow?" Kichi asked.

"Nothing planned. Why?"

"We are going to a museum one town over. Do you want to join us?"

"Oh can we please dana? I will be on my best behaviour all day I promise." Deidara said with a joyful sparkle in his eyes

"OK if you really want to we can go"

"Hurray"

**AN: This took me a little longer to update than I had planned. But it's up now and I like it. Please review, it makes me so happy.**

**REVIEWERS GET AN IMAGINARY BUNNYRABBIT :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**AN: First off I would like to tell you that three imaginary bunnyrabbits found new homes this week. **

**kariuchiha19 got the first bunny. It's a very cute bunny. It's light brown with a dark brown spot over his left eye. **

**AkatsukiWinItachiSasoriDei dara got the second bunny. It's black with dark blue eyes :) **

**ZylanRayne got bunny number three. It's a cute little white bunny with black spots and eyes that look like two shiny black beads.**

**Thank you so much for your reviews.**

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><p>There should be a rule against waking people up before half past six in the morning if you don't have a damn good reason to. There probably was but Deidara didn't seem to care. He was jumping on the bed with one foot on either side of Sasori's waist while screaming,<p>

"We are going to the museum today with Hana, right dana? And we are gonna look at art and go to the giftshop and eat lunch together, right? Wake up dana I want to get ready so we can go."

Sasori tried putting the pillow over his head to block out the sound but it didn't work. The boy's voice seemed to just bore it's way through anything, damn brat. He threw the pillow to the side and reached up to grab the boys hips and pull him down next to him on the mattress. "He held the squirming boy against his chest, preventing him from getting up again.

"Listen closely Deidara because I'm only going to say this once. I have set the alarmclock to give us plenty of time to get ready before we have to meet the girls. Getting ready now will not make time go faster so we are not getting up before the alarm goes off . I just want you to lay here next to me like a little teddy bear or a puppet and don't wake me up unless it's an emergency."

The boy calmed down almost immediately but still had a hard time laying still. Eventually Sasori gave up and gave him an empty notebook together with a pen.

"Here you go, make me some nice paintings but don't wake me up again if it's not an emergency."

Thinking about the time Deidara accidentally set fire to a hotel in his sleep Sasori really hoped that there would be no emergencies.

Miraculously when the alarm went off Sasori had not been woken up once. He looked around the room and immediately felt a little worried because he couldn't see his partner anywhere. He found the boy playing with the earth in a big flowerpot outside the door. After giving the boy a short lecture about not going off without telling him, and making sure that none of the lumps of earth was explosive, he picked him up and carried him to the bathtub.

"Dana. Can you wash my hair?"

"But I washed your hair yesterday."

"Please dana. I like the way it feels"

"OK then, but you better wash the rest of your body just as good. I don't want to find dirt spots anywhere on you when you're done.

"OK dana"

After cleaning the long blond hair Sasori left Deidara in the tub, with a soap covered sponge in one hand and his plastic plate in the other, to find some clean clothes for both of them to wear. He realised that when it came to the boy there were no clean clothes to find so he concluded that he would let Deidara decide on his own and then just wash those clothes. That way he wouldn't have to clean all of them.

Sasori turned around when he heard footsteps. His partner was standing completely naked behind him, dripping large amounts of water on the floor.

"Deidara. What are you doing? Dry your self off before leaving the bathroom."

"I can't reach the towels. What are you doing?"

"I'm picking out clothes for the day. Go back in the bathroom!" Sasori said.

The boy didn't listen to him. Instead he ran to the bed and began looking through his different clothes. Sasori took a deep calming breath and just got the towel himself.

When he began drying the boy off he noticed that he had a large bruise on his stomach from the bite the day before. When he saw it he couldn't stop himself from chuckling a little and poking at it.

"Oww, dana stop it, un"

"Sorry. But it's really funny that you bit yourself."

Deidara stuck his tongue out at Sasori enforcing it by using the one in his left hand as well. This might have been a bad idea though because Sasori captured both tongues with chakra-threads, preventing him from pulling them back in.

"Brat. Behave."

"So'ee dana"

"All right. What do you want to wear?"

"Ehm… The red t-shirt and the green pants and the flip-flops"

"OK. Give them to me and put on something else."

"Why?"

"Because I have to wash them. It would be nice if we at least started the day in clean clothes. With a little luck they will dry while you're eating breakfast."

After breakfast Deidara spent nearly half an hour brushing and styling his hair before Sasori told him that if he was not ready in five minutes he was going to cut the hair off. Needless to say when he turned around from the bag he had been packing the boy was standing next to the door. He was panting a little from running around the room to find all his things and there was toothpaste around his mouth. Sasori dipped a towel in the glass of water standing on the bedside table and tilted the boys head upwards to wipe the stains away. With the help of his puppeting skills he then redid the hairtie on the ponytail. Just to tease the boy he then captured his face between his hands and turned the head from side to side.

"Well guess I won't have to be embarrassed to be seen with you at least" he said smiling and patted a cheek with one of his hands.

"You'll do as well since I've got nothing better." Deidara answered and smiled back at him.

After one slightly harder pat Sasori gave the boy the backpack he had packed for him and then pushed him out the door.

**AN: Reviews make me do a happydance around the living room. Please let me dance :)**


	13. Chapter 13

"Wow. You are exactly on time" Kichi said and looked at the big clock on the station wall.

"Well I don't like waiting, or making people wait." Sasori explained.

"Aha. I'm always so scared of being late that I end up being early."

They got on their train and immediately the two children began talking lively about all their expectations for the day and the different things they wanted to buy from the giftshop. In his head Sasori estimated that if Deidara was actually going to buy all the things he wanted he would not be able to afford anything else for the next four months. Oh well, let's cross that bridge when we get to it.

For a while everything was calm and Sasori found himself having a discussion about how to best take care of the different injuries children seemed to attract like flies. Who would have guessed that I would ever find parenting tips interesting, he thought to himself and mentally shook his head. Suddenly the calmness was interrupted by an angry scream.

"Stop it! Let go! Dana, she's messing with my hair." Deidara shouted at the same time as he tried to push the girl away from him.

"Please don't mess with his hair" Sasori said with a tired sigh.

"But I just wanted to practise braiding it. I was going to take it out again if he didn't like it." Hana said.

"Well. Did you ask him for permission first?" her mother wondered.

Hana looked slightly ashamed and shook her head.

"I forgot. Sorry Deidei"

The boy was still sitting with his arms crossed and his bottom lip sticking out.

"Mmm" he grunted.

"Hey Hana. What do you say about styling my hair instead?" Kichi said to change the subject.

Hana nodded and quickly picked a number of different combs, brushes and styling products out of her bag. She stood up on the seat next to her mother and began brushing through her hair. Deidara looked at her, twiddling his fingers in his lap. When she began putting in colourful hair clips he bit his bottom lip.

"Deidei, are you ok?" Sasori asked.

"Ehm… yeah" the boy said without looking away from what the girl was doing.

"Would you like to style my hair?" Sasori smiled at him. The boy immediately turned to look at him with big eyes and a big smile.

"Can I?" he asked.

"As long as you return it to normal before we have to get off the train."

Deidara promised and soon the two children were standing on either side of the others, sending brushes, hairbands and clips back and forth between each other. I the meantime the grownups continued the discussion they had begun earlier, occasionally pausing to look at themselves in the small handheld mirror Hana had brought.

"Mom can I put glitter in your hair?" the girl asked.

"No but I can put some in your hair if you want to."

"OK"

"I want glitter in my hair too" Deidara said.

"Ask Hana if she can give you some then." Sasori answered him.

"I want you to put it in dana"

"Here you go" Kichi said and handed the jar of glitterspray over to the boy.

"Thank you" Deidara said and jumped off the seat to stand in front of his partner. "I want it here" he said and pointed at the hair hanging down over the left side of his face.

"Ok. Close your eyes then." Sasori said. Deidara did so and just to be on the safe side Sasori also put a piece of paper underneath the hair before spraying it.


	14. Chapter 14

Hand in hand the two kids jumped off the train, closely followed by Kichi, making sure they didn't get lost in the crowd. Sasori got off and looked around. This town seemed a lot bigger than the one they were coming from.

"Deidei, stay close I'm not in the mood for kidhunting."

"Ok Dana." Deidara yelled as he ran past on his way over to a vendingmachine he had spotted in a corner. "Dana I want a soda"

"No. You have a bottle of juice in the backpack."

"But I want a soda, un"

"Well you can't have one because I packed you juice and that soda is probably overpriced"

"But I can buy it with my own money"

"I thought you were saving those for the museum."

"Yea but…"

Once again Hana and Kichi came to the rescue.

"What kind of juice is it?" Kichi asked. Deidara looked at her and then took off the bag to check.

"Ehm… Orange."

"Oh. Can I have a taste?" Hana said with a smile.

"Eh, sure"

"And maybe you could offer him to taste your drink as well honey?" Kichi said.

"OK. You want some of my chocolate milk?"

"Yes please."

Soon the two children were walking ahead of them talking happily to each other. Sasori just couldn't believe his eyes.

"How do you do it?" he asked looking over at the woman next to him.

"Lots of experience. It's not that hard really. The key is to start talking about something different, but somewhat related, so they won't notice that you are changing the subject."

"I'm learning a lot of new things today. You have some mad parenting skills."

"Thank you, but I'm not that good I'm just making most of it up as I go along. Most of the time I'm just scared out of my mind that I will do something to mess her up."

"Don't worry about it, you are a good mother."

Kichi smiled at him and put her hand on his shoulder.

"And you are a good father," she said.

Father? Well of course it made sense that Kichi thought that but Sasori hadn't thought about it before. Naturally everyone was going to assume that he was Deidara's father since he was living with him and taking care of him. So what now, should he correct her or should he just leave it be? Come to think of it what kind of relationship did he have to the boy? Workpartners didn't really seem to fit any more.

"Actually I'm not really… he's not my real… I'm just taking care of him."

"So you're like his fosterdad?"

"Yes, yes I am"

Fosterfather, who would have thought that a week ago?

After a short walk trough the town they got to the museum. Sasori was just about to go in through the doors when he noticed that Deidara was just standing in front of the building without moving. He walked back and stood behind the boy.

"What are you looking at brat? You know I don't like waiting."

"It's so big, and look there are dragonsculptures over the door"

"I see them. Do you want to look more at them or should we go inside?"

"I want to go inside."

"Ok come on then," Sasori said and gave the boy a little shove towards the door.

When they got into the lobby they were met by a big sign pointing them towards the different exhibitions. Hana and Kichi were already standing in front of it looking through the different options.

"Oh Dana there is one called "The art of a single moment" can we go look at that?" Deidara said with a hopeful smile.

"Let's see, that's a photoexhibition. Sure we can go take a look."

"Yay!" Deidara exclaimed and went back to looking at the sign.

"You know how to read Deidei?" Kichi said with a surprised look.

The boy did not take his eyes from the board but he nodded . Kichi looked really impressed by this.

"How did you teach him to read?" she asked.

"Ehm, I didn't. His, ehm, his babysitter did. She said he is very gifted." Sasori said with, what he hoped was, a proud and convincing smile.

Eventually they had made up a plan on what exhibitions to see in what order. Before lunch they were going to see the photo exhibition, modernistic sculptures, beautiful everyday things and if they had time they would take a look at some stuffed animals. Then afterwards they would do classic style paintings and the history of fireworks. And then of course they would go to the giftshop, otherwise the kids would kill them.

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><p>An: I'm guessing you have already figured this out but reviews make me so very happy. A line from you will make my day :)<p> 


	15. Chapter 15

Sasori had pictured a day at a museum as something calm and relaxing, it turned out this was not the case. Usually Deidara would argue with him over just about everything from what the pictures symbolised to if they should go around the room clockwise or not, but he would at least walk calmly and take the time to really look.

"Hey kids, you're going to miss half the pictures if you just run past them like that." Sasori said.

"Nahaa, we're not. We see them on the way." Deidara answered him.

"But you aren't really looking at them. What's the point of going to a museum if you aren't going to look at the art?"

"What do you mean?" Hana said with a confused look.

Sasori closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers across them.

"Come here I'll show you"

The children walked over to him and looked up at the photograph he was standing in front of.

"Now tell me, what do you see?"

"Ehm… I see a tiger." Hana said and scratched her head.

"OK, good start. Can you tell me something more? What kind of tiger is it, how does it look, what's the feeling of it?"

"Ehhh…" Hana looked even more confused now.

"I think, because it's running in snow, it's a Siberian tiger. It looks wild and strong and the way it's coming at us is very powerful, like it's on it's way to attack us." Deidara said and received a surprised look from Kichi.

"That's good brat. Now do the rest." Sasori said and then gently pushed the children towards the next picture.

"Did you just tell your child he has to analyse the art he's looking at before he's allowed to move to the next one?" a man next to him asked.

"Well I wouldn't call it analyse but at least it will keep him busy for a while so I wont have to listen to him nagging me about speeding up."

"But he can't be older than five."

"Four actually but that's beside the point, he's a kid, he's not stupid. I don't see a problem in trying to get him to use his brain a little"

The man looked a little shocked by this.

"Kids should be allowed to be kids. They should not have to feel that they have to perform for you to love them."

"Do you think I enjoy doing this? I would love to just let him do what ever he wants but I know that would blow up in my face." Sasori said with a somewhat ironic smile.

"What does his mother think about you pushing him so hard?"

"How should I know? It's not like I ever see her, I don't even know if she's alive any more." Sasori said looking straight into the man's eyes without so much as blinking.

The man looked even more shocked and turned and walked away. Kichi broke down laughing.

"I almost feel sorry for that poor man, you probably scared him with that cold non emotional face you had when you said she might be dead."

"I hate know-it-alls."

Kichi laughed again and looked over to the other corner of the room where the man was now glaring at Sasori's back.

Deidara seemed luckily unaware that he was the cause of an argument, he was way too busy telling Hana about a picture of a flower.

"And it grows in the garden at our hotel. And I when rained the other day I helped putting up umbrellas so the flowers wouldn't get headaches. And I talked to the flowers and the one that looked like that said that her name was Tangerine."

"Can I talk to flowers too?" Hana asked.

"Yes you can. It's easy talking to flowers but you have to listen with your heart and not your ears. That's a bit tricky but when you get the hang of it the rest is easy." Deidara answered.

"I'm gonna try that when we get home."

"Dana! We have looked at all the pictures now can we go to the sculptures?" Deidara yelled turning around to look at Sasori. Sasori nodded and they moved on to the next room.

Sasori noted that the man from before went after them but he decided not to comment on it. Deidara found a number of claysculptures he really liked and forced the others to look at them for a long time before he was satisfied. Hana found a big shiny blob that she said looked exactly like a sleeping silver pig even though no one else could see it. In the room after that they found a teapot that looked like a fat dragon. They all fell in love with it, Sasori wouldn't admit it though.

It turned out that the stuffed animals exhibit was not a room but a whole floor, that Deidara said smelled like Sasori's workshop. This was probably true since at least part of how he made his human puppets was roughly the same procedure as making taxidermist animals.

Since the children had next to no interest in the display of arachnids that started out the exhibition, Sasori on the other hand loved it, they decided that they would meet up forty-five minutes later at the exit. But first the children did have to solemnly swear that they were going to really look out for each other, absolutely not leave the exhibit and go directly to the door when the alarm on Hana's watch sounded. They did so and then went off to see if they could find any cool animals.

Sasori suddenly found himself telling Kichi all the interesting facts he knew about scorpions. It turned out it was a lot more than he had thought it would be. As a child he did have a special interest for them due to the fact that Sasori does mean scorpion but he would have thought that most of that knowledge had disappeared by now. It also turned out that Kichi knew a lot about stuffing animals due to the fact that her grandfather was a taxidermist. They had a really good time.

When the forty-five minutes was up they when to the exit to meet the kids. When they came running Sasori noted that Deidara was missing a shoe.

"What happened to your shoe Deidei?" he asked.

The boy looked down at his feet and held the left one up for closer inspection.

"I don't know. I had it before I must have lost it."

"How can you lose something you're wearing? Why did you take it off?" Sasori said with tired sigh.

"I had to scratch an itch under my foot."

"Where was that?"

"I can't remember, we were looking at something black and white."

Sasori pulled his hand through his hair.

"Hana, do you know were his shoe can be? Do you have any idea what the black and white thing is?"

"No, there are a lot of things that are white and black." the girl said and shook her head a little.

"This can't be happening!" Sasori said to no one in particular.

"Calm down, these things happen. We just have to split up and search for it. Me and Hana will take the right side and you and Deidei can take the left side, OK?" Kichi said and grabbed a hold of her daughter's hand.

Sasori nodded and they went off in different directions. After a few meters a small hand snaked it's way into the larger wooden one. Sasori looked down at it and then refastened Velcro strap on the glove. Deidara immediately opened and adjusted it but he did hold up the other one to be refastened as well.

"I like these, can I keep them even when we go home?"

"Sure you can but I'm not sure they will still fit you."

"OK. But I'm gonna make new ones then and if you want to I can make them for you too." Deidara said with a big smile. Sasori just nodded.

They didn't say anything for a while after that until Deidara tugged a little at Sasoris hand.

"Dana, I'm hungry!"

"If you had not lost your shoe we would be at lunch by now so you have no right to complain."

"But I'm hungry." the boy said with the most miserable look he could force his cute face into.

Sasori looked down at him, sighed and stopped.

"Know what we'll do? We'll just run the rest of the way OK?"

"OK."

They started running hand in hand but Deidara had a really hard time keeping up so in the end Sasori picked him up and told him to keep an eye out backwards so they wouldn't accidentally run past and miss the shoe.

They attracted quite a few confused looks from the other people as they ran past. They also attracted quite a few laughs and a angry huff from the man Sasori had been arguing with earlier. Suddenly Deidara began fidgeting like crazy, trying to get loose so Sasori stopped and put him down.

"I found it Dana." the boy said and ran over to a stuffed cow in the middle of the room.

He put on his shoe and after Sasori had done a quick check that nothing more was missing they ran back to the door again. When the girls had come back as well and after a quick detour past the toilets they went down to the cafeteria.

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><p>AN: I'm sorry it took so long to finish this chapter. I used to be ahead of what I published but I have now caught up to myself. My life has not been cooperating with me and I have not been able to write as much. But don't worry, not a day goes by that I don't think about these people and I have every intention of finishing.<p> 


	16. Chapter 16

Deidara ordered sausage scrambled eggs for lunch but when he got his food he refused to eat anything other than the egg. Sasori tried telling him that he would still be hungry if he did not eat the rest as well. But that didn't change the boy's mind at all. Once more Kichi came to the rescue.

"Deidei, do you like chocolate?" she said.

"Yes I do."

"Then if you taste the other things I will give you a spoon of my chocolatecake and if you finish it all you can have your own piece OK?"

Deidara gave this a little thought and eventually dug in to his food. After Hana had been promised the same deal she did as well.

As soon as they had finished their food the children ran off to neighbouring room where the museum had set up a table where they could make their own sculptures. Sasori and Kichi stayed at their table and had a cup of tea and talked about nothing. At least Kichi had a cup of tea, what Sasori did was cleverly moving the cup around so it looked like he might be drinking tea.

After a few minutes of this however the quiet time was over. They heard the screech of a chair scraping across the floor followed by girl screaming. Then it was like the whole world froze for Sasori.

"KATSU"

"FUCK!"

Before the people around him had even noticed the explosion Sasori was running towards it. The fact that he was running over tables, stepping in somebody's fish did not seem important at the time. When he got to the door he saw a boy at the table. He had brown hair and probably he used to have eyebrows. What had once been his eyebrows were now two darker lines in his sooty face. He was staring blankly in front of him in shock.

Where the hell is Itachi when you need him? Sasori thought as he surveyed the scene. Simply putting a genjutsu on everyone would have made his life so much easier. The best he could do at the moment was put a light daze on the kids while he wiped the boy's face clean, using more then ten wet wipes at once.

"Deida…Deidei what the hell do you think your doing." he growled.

"I… I… He started it."

Sasori took a firm hold of Deidara's arm and pulled him closer.

"I don't care Deidara. I don't care who started it. You are… used to be a grown… almost grown man. You know what you're doing, you are responsible for your own actions." he whispered angrily.

"But… but… Dana…. I… I'm sorry." Deidara said before breaking down in tears.

Sasori immediately regretted being so hard on him. He let go of his arm and instead put his hand on his shoulder. He looked into the blue eyes and wiped away a tear from the boy's cheek.

"OK. Tell me what happened."

Deidara wiped his nose and nodded.

"Well that guy was really mean. First he took my clay and then he called Hana a stupid bimbobitch. And he said that his art was much better than ours and that we would never be any good and then he pulled Hana's hair so I blew up his sculpture."

"But why was the clay even explosive? Why aren't you wearing your gloves?"

Deidara did not have time to answer the questions however because at that moment a woman entered the room and began demanding to know what had happened to her sweet little boy. The boy looked up at her with a slightly confused look.

"I… I… He… Ehm…"

Seeing that his little genjustu seemed to have made the boy forget exactly what happened Sasori seized his chance.

"Deidei here told me that they got into a fight over some clay and who's a better artist." he said.

"Are you telling me that that boy attacked my dear Daiki over something as silly as that? What a terrible child! You should teach him to not start fights just because he's jealous of someone else's talent for art." the woman said and looked at Deidara with an almost disgusted look in her eyes.

"My dear lady it was not Deidei who started the fight, he was just defending his friend. And I find it very hard to believe that your son is enough of an artistic genius to make Deidei even the least bit jealous of him."

"Are you saying that your kid is a better sculptor than mine?"

"I have no doubt about it."

"You wanna bet?"

"No, you got the wrong guy. I have a colleague at work that would have taken you up on your offer hands down but I have better things to do." Sasori said .

"You are just afraid your child will loose. You're coward."

Sasori looked from the woman to Deidara and then over at the other boy. He smiled.

"Fine then. Deidei you wanna do some sculptures?"

Deidara smiled too and nodded. Sasori looked back up at the woman.

"So what should they do? People, animals, ninjas"

"How about birds" the woman said with a confident glance at her son. Deidara's smile grew even wider.

"Any particular species you want Dana?" he said looking up at Sasori. When the puppetmaster shook his head Deidara instead directed a questioning look at the woman.

"Does it matter? As long as it's possible to tell that it's a bird it can be whatever species you want."

"OK. I'm gonna make an owl." Deidara said with a smile.

"Fine. Let's begin. You both have a piece of clay, let the best bird win." the woman said and bent down to give her son a quick kiss on the head.

Sasori bent down as well, not to kiss Deidara however but to whisper in his ear.

"I know you can make a bird sculpture in a matter of seconds but please take your time. Make it look like you are doing it the usual old-fashioned way, without kinjutsu. OK?"

Deidara blinked and gave a single affirmative nod.

Around fifteen minutes later Daiki announced that he was done. He held out his sculpture. It looked like a toy Sasori used to have when he was younger, one of those clay pigeons with holes that you can play music on. To be honest Sasori was impressed by it, you could clearly tell that it was pigeon. The woman looked at him with a smile that clearly said that she was absolute confident that Deidara would not be able to beat that.

"I decided to do a Barn Owl, but I'm not sure if you can tell. What do you think Dana?" the blond boy said. On the table in front of him was a 10 cm high clay owl with a smooth round head and deep laying eyes. The only thing that kept it from being an almost perfect replica was the lack of colouring and feathers. Sasori smiled again.

"It's good Deidei. I think you won honey." he said, laying on the sweet talk just to annoy the woman. "Let's get this burned so we can take it home."

They turned their backs on the astonished woman and after dropping the owl off with a museum employee they left the room together with Hana and Kichi.

Once again the kids ran off as soon as they entered the exhibition but this time Sasori didn't feel like correcting them. He just pulled his fingers through his hair and hoped that they wouldn't cause any trouble.

Kichi and Sasori spent the following twenty minutes looking at paintings. When they occasionally caught glimpses of the children they seemed happy so Sasori was not prepared when he felt someone take his hand and he looked down to see Deidara looking back at him looking almost scared.

"What's the matter Deidei?" He said and pulled the boy's hair behind his ears in order to see his face properly.

"Come."

Sasori stood up and followed his partner over to a big oil painting. Deidara stopped and pointed at a figure at the back of the picture.

"Dana. Is that you?" he asked.

Sasori looked at the painting. In the foreground was people running away from the dark hooded figure Deidara had pointed at. The figure seemed to be the commander of the group of attacking soldiers. At first Sasori could not figure out why Deidara would think that it was him in the picture, it didn't really look like him, but then he saw the brass plaque attached to the wall next to it. "In honour of those who fell victim to Akasuna no Sasori and the one hundred puppets army". He knelt down and nodded.

"Yes Deidara, I think that's supposed to be me." he whispered.

"What did you do?" the boy questioned.

"Do you remember what I said when you asked me why I killed those two people guarding the box we were sent to take?"

"Ehm… That he was going to kill me."

"Yes. I said that they were our enemies, they were trying to kill us as well. This is the same, but on a much bigger scale. There was a war you see and I had to do this in order to protect my village and my people."

"But some of them are just kids and they all look so scared. The man in the house didn't look scared, he looked angry and scary."

"Well there are children in Suna as well and they are just as scared when their village is under attack." Sasori answered. He hoped that Deidara wouldn't push the matter since honestly sending Sasori in against these fighters was like fighting peashooters with flame-throwers.

"You look… you look scary Dana." Deidara said with a hint of tears in his eyes.

"Well you're lucky I'm on your side then." Sasori said and pulled his fingers through the boys hair. Deidara put his head on his partners shoulder and Sasori thought that he heard some soft sobs. He decided that probably the best thing to do was to not comment on it and let the boy cry if he wanted to. He picked the little blond up and carried him with him to look at the rest of the paintings.

"Why is Deidei crying?" a voice behind Sasori suddenly said. The puppetmaster turned around to face Hana.

"He saw a scary painting and he woke up very early this morning, he's probably tired." He said, not wanting to admit that he might have something to do with the boy being sad.

"OK. Does he need a nap?" The girl said, probably mimicking something her mother sometimes said.

Sasori tapped a finger against the boys back and got a nod in return.

"We'll find you later, OK"

Hana agreed and ran back to her mother. Sasori spent another thirty-five minutes walking around the exhibition with his partner half asleep on his shoulder.


End file.
